Description: The sheep frog is a small, stout frog with short legs, ranging about 1 to 1.5 inches, with females growing larger than the males. The dorsal color ranges from tan, to reddish-tan, to various shades of brown with irregular black flecks or spots, which may be extensive on some individuals, or absent on others. An orange, red, or yellowish mid-dorsal stripe, running from the snout to the vent is present on some specimens, but may by absent, vague, or fragmented on others.
Habitat: Hypopachus variolosus is known to occur in a variety habitats, most frequently reported from semiarid thornscrub and savanna environments. It also occurs in drier open woodlands, as well as more humid canyons, basins, foothills and premontane forest up to 5200 feet. Disturbed areas such as pasturelands, irrigation ditches, and vacant lots are also occupied. One author wrote that it is absent from undisturbed moist lowland forest in southern Mexico and Central America. In Texas, it is restricted to the semiarid thornscrub and grasslands of the Tamaulipan mezquital ecoregion. Sheep frogs are secretive and largely fossorial, known to live in the cavities of hollowed out root systems of trees and shrubs, mammal burrows, and pack rat nest. It is capable of burrowing backwards with its hind feet into loose soils, just below the surface during wet periods, and up to a meter in dry seasons. It emerges after heavy rains to breed and occasionally forage at night, and may be found under rocks, logs and fallen palm trees, and other surface debris while soils remain wet.
Range: The northern sheep frog (Hypopachus variolosus) is native to Central America, Mexico, and extreme south Texas, United States. It occurs in the lowlands from Sonora, Mexico, to northern Costa Rica on the Pacific coast, and south Texas to Honduras on the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean coasts.
Diet: Sheep frogs are diet specialist, feeding largely on termites and ants (Hymenoptera), although some minute flies (Diptera) and other insects are occasionally consumed as well.
Reproduction: Sheep frogs are diet specialist, feeding largely on termites and ants (Hymenoptera), although some minute flies (Diptera) and other insects are occasionally consumed as well. Typically (although not exclusively) eggs are deposited in ephemeral pools of rainwater, but also in ponds, marshes, ditches, and cattle tanks. Clutches of about 700 eggs have been reported and they hatch within 12 to 24 hours. The tadpoles are brownish with faint markings on the belly, and some individuals exhibit a mid-dorsal stripe, growing up to 1 to 1.4 inches in total length. Metamorphose occurs after about one month and froglets are 0.39 to 0.6 inches snout to vent length.
Status: It is a common species in some areas of its range, but it is uncommon in the US and listed as a threatened species in the state of Texas.
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Disclaimer: ITIS taxonomy is based on the latest scientific consensus available, and is provided as a general reference source for interested parties. However, it is not a legal authority for statutory or regulatory purposes. While every effort has been made to provide the most reliable and up-to-date information available, ultimate legal requirements with respect to species are contained in provisions of treaties to which the United States is a party, wildlife statutes, regulations, and any applicable notices that have been published in the Federal Register. For further information on U.S. legal requirements with respect to protected taxa, please contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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